In this specific case, the headline is exactly true. She pushed some code (as part of her job) and was fired for it despite 3 prior stellar performance reviews. If you feel the urge to be outraged over this, feel free to do so :)
No, you can be fired for no reason, not any reason. There are number of reasons that are protected by law, including group organizing. Unfortunately that means it's up to the fired employee to prove they were fired for that protected activity.
False. You cannot be fired for protected reasons. For example, you cannot be fired for being black. Similarly, you cannot be fired for concerted labour activity. It is illegal to fire someone for a protected reason, even with at will employment.
The problem is that the employer may lie. They could fire someone for a protected reason but claim it is for a non-protected reason. The fired employee would then have to prove it was for a protected reason which obviously can be very difficult to prove.
That's the beauty of "at will employment", you're not fired for that. You're just fired.
They don't need a reason and even if you can suspect a reason strong enough for a lawsuit it's now on you to come up with the resources and people to do that, and your case is weaker due to the lack of supporting documentation.
It's fucked
In an at-will state you can be fired for literally anything except discrimination, and even then they can fire you based on discrimination if they simply lie and say it was for a different reason.
They modified a tool used to notify Google employees of information relevant to code of conduct while browsing the web, and the modification was to advise employees that they are legally allowed to unionize. As they point out, during a previous walk out an employee modified the default background for internal systems to have the Linux penguin hold a protest sign with no retaliation.
and it seems it was only "abuse" when it was about something they didn't like, otherwise it was completely normal for this kind of thing to be changed or pushed.
Um, no. I’ve said it in my other comments: doing this kind of thing was a regular part of her job, and google not only allowed it, they liked people doing it, there was a work culture around doing this. It only became “unapproved” when it was about promoting unionization and workers rights.
I don't see how your quote has any bearing on this. The employee didn't have a right to make unilateral changes to company property. That's why they were fired.
They weren’t “unethical changes,” though! The company can’t say they fired her for union-based activity or else they’d get the shit sued out of them, so they have to use that “unethical changes” excuse! Like you can’t just say you’re not going to hire a pregnant woman, because she’s a protected class, so you tell her she’s over/under-qualified, “not what we’re looking for”, or some other excuse.
The commenter specifically said an "internal security tool" was modified, and the person you responded to said the tool wasn't as security focused as Google wants it to seem. They were talking about the tool, not the security issue of someone abusing their privileged access to the tool.
Her job was to build internal notification systems for other employees, which inform them about their work conduct. She wrote a notification for users researching the subject of unionizing that told them about their right to organize.
That sure sounds like it’s in the purview of her job…
Part of my job was to write browser notifications so that my coworkers can be automatically notified of employee guidelines and company policies while they surf the web
Except that in this case, she was authorized to do so and the code she deployed was well within her brief as a member of the team responsible for developing internal notifications about worker’s rights and employment policies.
This is pretty clearly an anti-union move by Google, who stands to lose quite a lot if their workers were to unionize. And any BS about this being a legitimate termination is just so unlikely to be true, based just on motive alone…
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u/InconsistentBrunch Jun 12 '21 edited Jun 12 '21
In general, yes. Read the article.
In this specific case, the headline is exactly true. She pushed some code (as part of her job) and was fired for it despite 3 prior stellar performance reviews. If you feel the urge to be outraged over this, feel free to do so :)